How to Start a Soccer Chant

By Jaime Lowe

March 3, 2017

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CreditIllustration by Radio

“Start with just a few words — chants that are easy to learn and that are repetitive,” says Max Jack, an ethnomusicologist who specializes in music and sports at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Chants like the frequently heard “olé, olé, olé” catch on quickly because they’re simple and often stay within a five- or six-note range. But most of the time, chants are familiar songs that have been adapted: “You might take a melody from a song you like, and you might just mess around with the words.” For example, fans of the Shamrock Rovers, a soccer club in the League of Ireland Premier Division, changed the chorus of Lykke Li’s song “I Follow Rivers” to “I, I, follow/I follow you, Shamrock Rovers.” (The same club has also been known to chant the lyrics to “Build Me Up Buttercup” without changing the lyrics at all. “They didn’t have their own home ground, the club went through all these hardships and the lyrics spoke to the hardships of the club,” Jack says.)

Don’t try to start a chant alone. “You need someone to affirm your performative gesture and return it in kind, and once you can do that, it will grow,” Jack says. You have to find the people who come for the atmosphere and not just for the game. In European soccer culture, “you’re there to create this thing and be in the middle of it.” Get on your feet. “Standing is one of the first components to starting a chant,” Jack says. “I’ve never seen it done while sitting down.”

Don’t limit your chants to the stadium. The most committed supporters go to every game, Jack says, and will spend hours on a bus chanting and singing before they arrive. “An entire social life develops around the primary goal of creating atmosphere,” Jack says. “You make banners and flags through the week for the match, and they’re huge; they might take up a whole stadium curve behind the goal. That involves a lot of time spent preparing.”

Because the power of the initial chant influences how many other fans will follow, show passion. “You have to seem authentic: You can’t just shout it loud — people have to see it in your eyes,” Jack says. “A group of fans will affirm the authority of the chant, and then when you have 50 people chanting, it can totally change the vibe in the stadium.”

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